Greg, my old boss at the venerable Scotch Plains Music Center, used to tease me for overuse of the phrase "almost exactly." Personally, I thought it made perfect sense, but he was of the opinion that the two words were, for the most part, mutually exclusive. Last night was a useful exercise in understanding why I like that overall concept.

We tracked three songs for Lindsie's band, and by and large, I played somewhere between 95% and 98% of what I wanted to play. Yet those last couple of bits are going to bother me. The first tune, "Trust," took about three or four takes, but I'm down with what was laid down. Same goes for "Red," which is going to be pretty amazing when it gets finished. For that one, in particular, I simplified a lot from what I do live, partially because I envision some serious percussion overdubs on that track. One of those things I've learned over time is that overdubbing over busy parts is a righteous pain in the ass. So this time, I'm prepared. I still want to bring my friend Bob in to play pandeira, which is basically a really big tambourine, on that.

"Do You Want Me," however, was a bit more challenging, and I really need to stop beating myself up over it. One of the issues was that Lindsie wasn't singing or playing guitar while we were laying down the tracks (except, later, on "Red"). Getting lost wasn't really the problem, but not being properly oriented towards the dynamics of the song was. That said, I think I have the exact same problem in the same spot live, so it may have nothing to do with that, anyway. And, at the end of the day, this particular problem is manifested by nothing more than a cymbal crash that's a little bit out of place. Not even out of time. Then, in the buildup out of the bridge, all four limbs aren't quite in sync, but given the nature of that part, that may be tough to notice when all is said and done. Finally, I had decided after one playback to take out a ride cymbal hit at one point, but for some reason, took out a kick drum note before it. That just sounds *weird*, but now that I think about it, I may have Doc let me overdub that on another track just to ease my mind.

Yeah, I know, I'm being way too much of a perfectionist about this, but I've come to develop a pretty good track record of getting parts down the way I want them, and occasionally it will distort my definition of the "almost" in "almost exactly." I'll get over it.